Member-only story
I cried all week (and why it’s OK…)
It’s been an emotional week. On Sunday evening I arrived back from LA. On Monday, we got up to find my dog, who was old and had been struggling with nerve damage in his back and hips for a while now, had got himself into an awkward position and no amount of trying could get him up.
I called the vet, sent my teen off to school and waited. I knew we had only days with him but the vet’s diagnosis was that our old fellow had most likely slipped a disc and had little or no sensation in the back half of his body. We took the decision that it was the right moment to end his life.
I held my dear sweet boy as he went, first, to sleep with a sedative, and then as his heart stopped and the life slipped from him. He seemed peaceful and, as always, he looked at me with complete trust and friendship.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been with someone, or an animal, at that point of death?
We can feel, almost see, the life evaporating out of the body.
It reminded me of breathing air in and out of our lungs, What comes from the atmosphere, returns to the atmosphere. Dust to dust we used to say at funerals, but it feels more like life to life. My lovely boy’s life energy returning to the greater life energy, to come back in some other form.
